The mainstream media’s outrage over the UKIP’s “breaking point” poster is “synthetic” and designed purely to derail the Leave campaign’s winning message, the head of the Discourse Institute has said.

Speaking on Breitbart News Daily, George Igler said the Remain campaign have been trying to exploit the tragic death of Labour MP Jo Cox in order to silence the Leave campaign and “tie their hands behind their back” on immigration.

Launching a defence of the much-criticised poster, Mr Igler said it was “an accurate depiction of the facts” and is exactly “what happened to Europe” at the height of the migrant crisis last year.

Many commentators in the mainstream media have tried to use the poster as an example of the supposedly dangerous “tone” of the EU referendum debate in the moments leading up to the killing of Jo Cox.

However, Mr Igler pointed out the poster was released “something like an hour before this poor woman died.”

“There’s no way her murderer could have even seen it let alone be motivated by it,” he added.

He said the Remain campaign and its supporting media seek to “exploit” the killing because “this argument about mass immigration and this being the only vote Britain will get on the subject, it was working.”

Instead, mainstream media is desperate to “own the narrative” on immigration, insinuating that those who oppose it are “endangering personal safety”.

He also said that the real “extreme language” was from the political mainstream as they are trying to paint half the country – the half wanting to leave the European Union – as beyond the pale.

“What the language by the political mainstream and the mainstream media is doing is it’s polarising the entire country – remember what I said about 45 per cent being leave, 45 per cent being remain – and they’ve encouraged one half of the country now to look in suspicion at the other half of the country.”